WoWInsider reports that Blizzard confirmed that you won't be able to play Wrath of the Lich King if you haven't got The Burning Crusade installed. Not a huge surprise, you'd have a problem to close the gap from level 60 to 70 without TBC anyway. But a reader was writing me and asked whether I thought that in the long run this could be a financial barrier to entry for people wanting to start WoW if they have to buy all the expansions.

I don't think that will really be a problem. You can now get the World of Warcraft Battlechest for $30, containing the original WoW and the first expansion. So you pay less for the bundle than either of them did cost on release. If on November 13 you want to buy WoW, TBC, and WotLK all together, it only costs you $70. And really, there is no good reason to want to buy WotLK for a new player right from the start. I'm pretty sure that by the time the third expansion comes out, there is some cheap package where you can buy WoW with both expansions for $30 or so.

The real barrier to entry into WoW nowadays is a completely different one. Like one of my readers commented yesterday, he had a friend joining for the first time, and that friend asked "where are all the other players?". That will be worse after Wrath than before. Not only will everyone be at level 80, which even with sped up leveling is a long way to go, but also there won't be all that many low level alts as in The Burning Crusade. TBC had veteran players making level 1 draenei and blood elf. WotLK has veteran players make level 55 death knights. Big difference for the future population of newbie zones.

Sad as it is, the best way to start WoW nowadays is via a friend, who recruits you with that triple xp offer and rushes you through the part of the game we used to love back in 2004/2005. Because in 2008/2009 that part of the game is an empty wasteland. You can still quest in the Barrens, but when you read some reference to the famous "Barrens chat" you won't know what they are talking about, because all you heard was eerie silence.
- posted by Tobold Stoutfoot @ 7:33 AM Permanent Link
Links to this post

Comments:

Something similar happened in DAOC when they allowed all players with a lvl 50 char to create new chars starting at lvl 20. It really killed the game for new players.

I've never played WoW, or even watched anyone else play it. All I know about it is what I've read on the web and the endless discussions/rants I've heard about it in the games I have been playing since WoW launched (mostly EQ/EQ2/Vanguard/Guild Wars/LotRO).

I always had it in mind to try WoW one day, but there's always been something MMO that looked more interesting. Since I prefer playing in very low population environments (Test servers and/or U.S servers on GMT time for example), and since I massively prefer low-level gameplay to high level, Tobold's comments actually make trying WoW seem a more attractive idea to me than it has done previously.

Realistically, though, with expansions imminent for three MMOs that I already know and enjoy, plus Warhammer, which I would like to try, and several interesting MMOs in development that I'm lookng forward to, it looks increasingly likely that, despite having played MMOs as my main leaisure activity for nearly ten years, I will never get round to playing the biggest and most successful of them all.

Well, been one of those who choose GW insted WOW in old days, i played only LOTRO in meanwhile. And Aoc, for a month ;)I just started WOW and it is empty, but that doesnt bother me.I have a friend which is helping me (old veteran, ofc), and its fun.But i must admit that im wondering how WOW looked like in glory days :)

Rememeber when that one guy said "You're mom" and that other guy said "No. YOUR mom" and someone said "I did your mom" and then someone else chimed in with "Oh yeah? Well Chuck Norris is soooo badass that..."

Well the thought of purchasing the starter (original game) and WotLK comes viable through this sentence you wrote:

"TBC had veteran players making level 1 draenei and blood elf. WotLK has veteran players make level 55 death knights."

It's more than plausible for the newcomer to want her/his piece of the action which is happening in the most active level range. My guess is that Blizzard will bundle WoW and TBC into one package completely and thus take one hurdle away from the newcomers.

Sadly that does empty the Old World content with it's dense lore completely. But then again, the more time and space for us explorers to go through the whole area.

To me this represents poor world design. It was bad enough when TBC came out and all the 70s went to Shattrath while the old world was a ghost town. Now even Shat will be history as everyone becomes lvl 80. Why doesn't Blizzard add things to bring back high levels to other areas? ie. daily quests, random events, open world pvp. Imagine if Stormwind was threatened by a plague and needed people to mine, hew and fight to save the city from attack!

I observed the same thing a few days ago, when I explored the Exodar with a twink. Ok, it was a "recommended" Server and it was about midnight. But within an hours time I met no (!) other player not even at the bank or auction house. In addition the Exodar is so large that the feeling of loneliness is doubled...

Well, I guess that WoW is coming into the "catering to the established community" part of it's life cycle, much like EQ is in for several years now. WoWs popularity has probably peaked with TBC release and I don't think that there will a great influx of brand new players to WoW anymore. It will be mostly just old players resubbing for new expansions and so on.

If WoW plays it's cards right it might manage to retain a loyal core audience for many years just as EQ successfully did. After a certain point it just makes more sense keeping the current players happy and making content for them, instead of trying to entice new players to a somewhat aged game.

I've written about this before, most cohesively in my "Old World of Warcraft" article. It's just poor game design to make a persistent online world focus on the endgame while ignoring the leveling content. I like the lore of WoW, but the business and design decisions leave me scratching my head.

Thanks for the link, Tobold. I thought of putting one in, but wasn't sure what protocol to use. It's a bit of a meandering article, so it's less cohesive and more comprehensive... but all in all, it discusses many of the same concerns that you've expressed. (As well as some others.)

I think you will always have a certain faction of any game who enjoy low level content. Personally, I would much rather roll a new alt than participate in a 25-man raid. I agree with one of your previous posts that some horizontal content would improve the game, but a lot of people who are of a mind to make alts are at the 10 char cap per realm (I am on 3 diff servers).

"The Wrath of the Lich King expansion requires the original World of Warcraft game, available now for a suggested retail price of $19.99, along with World of Warcraft: The Burning Crusade®, which sells for $29.99. These two products are combined in the World of Warcraft Battle Chest®, are available for $39.99. World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King has received a Teen rating from the ESRB."

This makes an interesting point about WAR : what will happen in two year's time, when all the veteran players will be rank 50 or 60? Right now leveling is a blast with scenarios and PQs and objectives and keep sieges - unfortunately all of these are utterly reliant on other players being around. At least in WoW you can level as an online solo RPG, I'm not sure how well that would work in WAR - the mechanics are simply too different.